A reader wrote in to suggest this one. I admit I’ve made this blunder myself. More than once. It really is easy to goof up and describe a cave in meticulous detail, while forgetting to mention the dragon laying in the middle of the chamber.

Part of this is due to narrator’s vanity: We know that once we mention the dragon the rest of the description is going to be ignored. We want to make sure nothing we’ve written goes to waste, so we mention the most obvious details last.

Zedolor’s GM notes…
I always try to consider: what’s the first thing that would draw the onlooker’s eyes, and is it distracting enough to drown out other details? In the case of encountering a dragon in a cavern, I may not even offer further description beyond the dragon unless the players specifically request it.

I’ve done that on purpose a number of times. Although, I usually do it to build up dramatic tension, or narrative irony or something like that. Eh, quite frankly, it amuses me to see the shocked looks on their faces when I off-handedly mention the towering 50′ tall demon breathing fire in the middle of the room, chained to the pillars I just described in meticulous detail.

Ah, see- the secret to avoid missing something like that is foreshadowing. Drop little hints about something else going on, something really interesting, at the beginning and then refer to it now and again in passing as you detail the place.

Even if you forget this major detail, your players won’t. And in the process, they’ll pay attention.

So, my RSS Feed just picked up the new comic, and already there were 5 comments. I’m just curious if you have the statistics for how many people sit at your site refreshing every 20 seconds to catch the “Firth” Comment when they should be working?

Now I can’t get the picture of Aragormless and the King of all Bones fighting each other “Bridget Jones” style, with each one trying to hit the other while simultaneously keeping as far away from them as possible.

A friend is in the process of setting up a MUD, and I threw together a Wiki to help with some world design.

I’ve been sketching out a description of a city, and did pretty much exactly that. Lots of detail followed by the dragon in the fountain right at the end. (Although it is trapped in the ice and not much of a threat :D )

I’m still quite pleased with my concept, so I’ll probably publish it on my blog once I’ve finished polishing it.

Ah, flavor text. I remember taking my group through Ravenloft and reading about “the diaphanous cobwebs” and “ornate candelabras” et cetera and only then mentioning the red-eyed ueber-vampire coming to get them.

I would do something similar with pre-written adventures. I’d read the given description of the room (which, for some reason, never included monsters…even if they were standing in the middle of the room) and my PCs would begin to choose an exit from the description, and I’d say, “Wait! There’s a monster in here!”

I’m of two minds about the “Oh, by the way, there’s a dragon” approach. On the one hand, it’s funny, sure; but on the other, it’s not at all how we perceive things. In fact, having a big honkin’ dragon flaming all over the place is more likely to distract from, say, the ninja kobold behind the stalactite, or the sinkholes in the corner where your rogue wants to hide in shadows.

Well, if you are using miniatures, it gets a bit harder to forget to mention the dragon in the room. Unless you forget the miniature, of course. I have begun printing out large maps and uncovering the areas as the players move around. So I have a smaller “map key” sheet which has all the “invisible” things, such as traps or secret doors. Because of the dual activity of removing the covering over the corridors, and checking the current location, there have been a few “oh, before you get there… you fell into a 10 foot pit with spikes sticking up from below…”

What I need is a computer-operated gaming table with automatic triggering of events as players move around… Yeah… that’s the ticket….

I think the screen-caps are once again an excellent indication. The first Minas Tirith is an architechtural marvel, sitting on a pristine plain. This is an excellent depiction of the setting description, assuming you forget about the army!!!

As a DM, I always described the setting first then went for the bang ending with the monster. This led my group to only pay attention when my tone changed, “Sitting in the middle of the room…”

Honestly D&D has always been about shopping. Look back to the early days of the hobby. It wasn’t really about role playing then it was about going to towns, equipping characters and then crawling through a dungeon. And every good party carried a ten foot pole and 50 feet of rope.

I don’t think D&D even started to be about anything other then shopping and killing until the 80s. Then we started getting campaign worlds that were more coherent and every adventure wasn’t just a dungeon crawl.

Hey at least you eventualy told the players the improtant details…I tended to get bored with long monologs discribing settings…my players quickly learn to pay attention to the Yaddas thats where the improtant stuff hides

Them: what do you mean we need the enchanted crossbow bolt
Me: I’m sure I mentioned it, it must have been one of the yaddas

I find that this is really only a problem when running published adventures. Some modules will list the room description in a shaded or offset text box, and then put the occupants of the room underneath. First edition modules were especially bad in this regard. I suppose the reason it was done this way is because the monsters in the room could easily have been drawn out of the room by the players actions before the players entered the room. The writers wanted to give a room description that could be read right out of the book regardless of where the monsters had gotten to. The problem is, of course, that when working out of a module, the DM’s natural tendency is to just start reading the highlighted text when the characters enter the area.

I find its much less of a problem when I write my own stuff. I can lay out my notes and descriptions in the way that I know will let me keep track of what I should be describing first. It still happens on very rare occasion. That situation is on of the very few where I give my players a “do over” when declaring their actions, especially if there is just no way the characters would have acted the way they did if I had described the obvious encounter first.

Actually, I have a house rule which goes something like; “You don’t need to interrupt me, and don’t count on me ever repeating anything.” Whilst I don’t go in for the whole ‘bore your players to tears with overly long descriptions\flavour text’ it gets me quite annoyed when players cut me off mid-description.

I’ve used lines like; “Ok, the orcs in the chamber let you walk right in the middle of them and then they attack you. I’m gonna rule this as a surprise round for the orcs and yes, you’re flat-footed. Did I mention one of these orcs has some rogue levels?”

Whilst possibly one of the worst abuses of power a DM can commit (as demonstrated in the comic) it makes damn well sure they listen next time.

(I have anger issues. My biggest DM-flaw. I’ve ever not killed a character doing this, but I guess it don’t really make it right. Ah well, I’ve got a game on Sunday as well – my first in a while… Hope it goes ok.)

That’s just an artifact of the font being used. The letters are so close together that a preceding letter that bulges (like an “O”) often will “fill in the gap” at the lower left of the “S”, making it look like a “G”.

IDMS, or “Inattentive DM Syndrome” can have many flavors. The campaign I am running right now is a low level campaign, and the players are ultra-cautious. At one point when the came to a room that had a hole in one wall, they tied a rope around the rogue halfling’s waist and held onto it as he carefully crawled into the hole, where he discovered a hidden room. Inside that room were some giant insects and a chest. Soon enough the fight was on and after a short but fierce battle, the insects were dead and the chest was opened.

On the group goes to the next room, where the rogue fails a trap check, then fails a reflex save check and falls into a hole.

The paladin suddenly remembers the rope tied around his waist. “Hey we never untied him.”

DM: “Um… waitaminute, you haven’t been walking around the dungeon trailing fifty feet of rope…”

Paladin: “Where is the rope then?”

DM: “Um.. er.. OK, as the rogue falls through the floor, the rope trailing behind him slides in after him.

Paladin: “I was right behind him, do I see the rope?”

DM: “Yes.”

Paladin: “I grab the rope.”

DM: “OK, roll an agility check (sets DC to 20)”

Paladin: “A natural 20! Woohoo!”

DM: “…”

Paladin: “Did I grab it?”

DM: “…”

Rogue: “Yeah, did he grab it?”

DM: “Um… make a strength check.”

Paladin: “16, +2”

DM: “….”

DM: “OK, as the rogue falls through the floor, you make a wild grab at the rope. Amazingly you succeed in grabbing it. It jerks hard on your hands, giving you some nasty rope burns, but you manage to hang on, and set your feet before you too go over the edge. The rogue is now hanging 15 below the floor, and about the same distance above a floor where he can just make out some movement in the darkness.”

Paladin: “I pull him back up.”

DM: “OK.”

DM: “Are you untying the rope now?”

Eventually they untied him after I made it clear that now that I REMEMBERED the rope was tied to him and trailing along the floor, it was prone to tripping the party, snagging on things and was a nice handle for beasties who might want a quick halfling snack. But the damage was done, and the trap was avoided. All because I forgot that they had tied a rope to the halfling…

Life without pirates? Why not just take away the wind in our face? The adventure in our heart? The rum in our veins? Nay, I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me port liberty, or give me death!

I am nodding sagely in unison with you, though I must confess, it wasn’t really shopping that got me hooked on RPG’s and tabletop gaming (and thus becoming both my husband’s champion AND sometimes bane of his existence) –

More years ago than I’ll admit to, the group I was in was gaming at about 3 or 4 am.
DM: Do you want to go into the room and kill the 20 orcs?
US: Yeah, we’ll kill the 20 orcs.
DM: How’d you know there were 20 orcs?